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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26761240">Ghosts Don't Cry</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Wayward_Warrior/pseuds/Wicked_Wayward_Warrior'>Wicked_Wayward_Warrior</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Boy King of Hell Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Monster of the Week, Protective Dean Winchester, Reader-Insert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:32:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,896</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26761240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked_Wayward_Warrior/pseuds/Wicked_Wayward_Warrior</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Reader joins Sam and Dean on a hunt. It was supposed to be a milk run, easy as Sunday morning, but things quickly take a turn for the worst. The trio fight to survive.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dean Winchester/You, Sam Winchester/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ghosts Don't Cry</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A single drop of blood landed on my cheek, and for a moment, I thought it was a tear spilling from the corner of my eye, but it was too thick, too dark, too warm to be anything but blood. Trembling fingers smeared the blood that fell from my temple. They looked like blurs, barely recognizable as my own, but from the ache from the bruises and the cuts, there was no doubt that they were my hands. </p><p>I let out a painful moan as I shifted my body, seeking something sturdy to lean myself against. I clung to something beside me that was cold to the touch and solid enough to hold my weight. My muscles ached as I pulled myself to a standing position, giving myself a view of the mess laid out in front of me. </p><p>The cloud in my mind began to lift when I saw the broken slabs of wood, the caskets cracked and thrown against the wall, the petals floating around the room like snow. I brushed a hand through my blood-soaked hair struggling to piece things together. Memories flashed in my mind of the case I was working with the boys, but I couldn’t pinpoint how I ended up here and covered in blood.</p><p>Stumbling forward, I searched through the debris for the boys. I knew they were with me, searching for the ghoul by my side, but I couldn’t find them. I yanked broken furniture and splintered wood out of piles, hoping one of the boys was tucked nicely under them and still breathing, but the room was empty except for me.</p><p>“Sam? Dean?” I called. My stomach dropped into my shoes when my calls were met with silence. What the fuck happened to them? They were right there! They were right beside me. Where could they have gone? And how could they leave me?</p><p>Fear crawled up my throat with sharp hooks, making it difficult to speak. I swallowed hard, trying to keep my emotions at bay, and quickly realized I was too frail to succeed. They wouldn’t leave me. They wouldn’t leave me a bleeding mess like this. I knew it.</p><p>I shuffled through the room, kicking broken furniture out of my path as I made it to the door of the room. </p><p>Overwhelming fragrances from flowers and perfumes assaulted my senses as I passed into the next room. Caskets were set up on stands for display and soft instruments played through speakers in the background. Everything about funeral homes always made me feel itchy, but I never could figure out why. I had no qualms about death or about what the dead left behind, and now that certainly wasn’t the case, but there was something odd about places like this.</p><p>Without warning, the room started to spin. Blood fell into my lashes. My vision blurred. “Sam! Dean!” I croaked. My legs collapsed beneath me, sending me into the ground. Carpet fibers gathered under my nails as I clawed my way forward. I had to find them. I had to make sure they were safe. </p><p>“Sam! Dean!”</p><p>Commotion in the room ahead of me earned my attention. Double doors swung open, and my heart raced. My gaze drifted up from his boots to his black jeans, and the Henley he had under his olive flannel and blue jacket. A smile erupted on my lips as my eyes made contact with him.</p><p>There were gashes on his forehead, bruises on his cheeks, but he was okay. He was safe. “Dean!”</p><p>Light flashed on the silver blade in his hand as he made a rush toward me. “Hey! Hey! Don’t move! Are you hurt?”</p><p>I nodded as relief swam through my chest. “Yes. W-what happened?”</p><p>“I don’t know. I just—”</p><p>His words caught in his throat as a look of absolute horror crossed his face. A shrill scream ripped through my lungs as Dean’s mouth fell open and his eyes bulged wide in his skull. The blade in his hand slipped from his fingers, falling to the ground in silence against the carpet.</p><p>Moving on instinct alone, I crawled toward him, desperate to reach him before he fell to the ground. His knees hit first. Then I saw the blood spilling out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, showing nothing but the whites as I dragged my body behind me. </p><p>I should have been looking around, searching for the thing that got him, but all I could hear were my own screams, and all I could focus my mind on was him. Everything around me began to fade as tears burned my eyes. </p><p>Dean’s face bounced like Jell-O into the floor and his entire body fell limp. There wasn’t a flutter of his eyes or the soft twitch of his fingers. The only movement was blood pooling around his cheeks. </p><p>“No!” I screamed until I had no voice left. My body was exhausted, pain ripping through every inch of me, but I was only a hair away from him. </p><p>The anguish of my sobs broke when I heard a familiar voice call my name. I jerked my head up, relieved to see Sam standing across from me. His hair was disheveled, strands flying and flopping every which way. Unlike Dean and I, he seemed completely unscathed. No scratches or cuts or bruises, and for that, I was thankful. </p><p>“Sam!” I screamed at him. Seeing him gave me the final burst of energy I needed to reach to Dean. I pushed myself up just enough to cradle Dean’s head in my lap. “Sam, I-I think…”</p><p>“Is he okay?” Sam’s voice was steady. I was focused on his brother and didn’t look up, but the sound of his footsteps was slow and deliberate, the complete opposite of what I would expect.</p><p>I held Dean’s face against my chest, and rocked back and forth, pressing my fingertips onto his neck. My heart broke into two pieces as the realization hit. There was no pulse. There was no breath seeping out of his lips. There was no life left in him.</p><p>I dropped forward, feeling the grip of grief and sorrow tear through me. Fistfuls of his hair poked out through my fingers as I sobbed. This was supposed to be an easy hunt. It was supposed to be a fucking milk run, and now…</p><p>Dean was gone. The love of my life, the person that gave me strength when I had none left, the man that sacrificed everything for me and for his brother and for the world, and he was gone. </p><p>Sam’s hand pressed against my back and I raised my head, peering through my tear-soaked lashes to find him knelt down in front of me. “Sam, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened! I’m so sorry.”</p><p>He let out a heavy sigh, but the same sadness I was feeling was nowhere to be found in Sam. Initially, I brushed it off; it wasn’t unusual for the boys to suppress their pain to deal with the issue at hand. There was still a ghoul on the loose, but this…Dean was dead, and Sam seemed so stoic.</p><p>“It’s okay,” he said. “It had to be this way. It always had to be this way.”<br/>My breath caught in my chest as I met the coldness in Sam’s eyes. A savage grin twisted his mouth and he blinked, his eyes becoming pitch black.</p><p>“Sam?” My voice shook with desperation. A demon couldn’t possess him. We all had the anti-possession tattoos that kept us safe from demonic possession. And with Rowena at the helm, all demons and Hell’s residents were stuck behind the gates. They weren’t scouring the earth like they once had, much less coming for the Winchesters.</p><p>“Nope,” Sam said, tilting his head to the side. “Not a demon. All me.”</p><p>Incredulous, I shook my head. “No, Sam! No! It can't—“ Sam found the case. Sam suggested we work it together. Sam was the only one that saw the ghoul. Sam said he saw it coming into the funeral home. Sam said…</p><p>Sam stood, smug laughter booming from his chest. He turned his back to me, pacing across the floor, completely unfazed by the dead body of his brother. “You wanted Chuck gone, right? We tried to put it on Jack’s shoulder, but he failed. And then we tried Amara, and well, she just plain old refused. This was the only way. This was always the only way.”</p><p>I shook my head as if that would turn everything into a dream. I’d wake up and Sam would be himself and Dean would be alive…</p><p>But this wasn’t a dream. </p><p>“So what?” I asked, fingers clinging to the fabric of Dean’s jacket. “Was it in you the whole time? All you needed was to flip a switch?”<br/>Sam turned to me, making a sturgeon face. “This was always my destiny. Dean knew that. You knew that. We all knew.”</p><p>I opened my mouth to argue his point, but quickly realized it was pointless. None of us thought much of Sam’s psychic powers once Lucifer was locked away in the cage the first time, and to say that we knew was a reach, but to him, it wouldn’t have mattered.</p><p>I calmed the quiver in my lips and sighed. “So what now, Boy King? Your brother’s dead, Cas is gone. What now?”</p><p>Sam squinted his eyes, studying me, and knelt down in front of me again. He reached out and pressed his palms into my cheek. His hands were too big for my face and didn’t belong there in the way Dean’s had. A shiver of disgust crawled up my spine.</p><p>“You could be by my side. Face all that Chuck has to throw at us together.”</p><p>I spat at him. Spit landed just under his eye, the gross glob sliding down his cheek. “I’m not doin’ shit with you! You killed Dean! You killed your brother!”</p><p>Sam withdrew his hand from my face and wiped his cheek. He moved slowly like he was calculating his next move. “Dean was weak. He’s always been too weak. But you…you were never weak.” </p><p>Sam’s face softened and I thought that maybe my Sam was fighting his way to the surface. The Sam that was my best friend and treated people with compassion. The Sam that was just as protective as his big brother. The Sam that would look after me when I was sick and boost me up when I felt like shit. </p><p>I wanted my Sam to shine through the darkness and mourn his brother with me. But as soon as the thought passed my mind, I stashed it away with all the other fantasies I kept in my head.</p><p>That Sam was gone. Dean was gone. Cas was gone. Jack was gone.</p><p>Chuck won. Chuck w—</p><p>Sam tilted his head and indescribable pain shot through my body. Before I realized what was happening, the world around me shrunk. The broken caskets, the flowers, the tables, the carpet all crumbled. The sensation of Dean’s skin beneath my palms faded, and the sound of Sam’s cackle was a mere spark of static. My body slumped over Dean’s and my eyes shut. My sorrow at losing everyone I ever loved evaporated into absolute nothingness.</p>
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